Posts Tagged ‘Alvaro Uribe’

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for December 16, 2014. See original here and related articles here and here.]

By Gabriel Díaz

Piedad Córdoba, Colombian lawyer and politician, declares that there is no turning back in the peace process with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) despite the the fact that it has been “very poorly conducted educationally” by the Juan Manuel Santos administration. “Society should take ownership of this process,” she states. She talks in an interview about the Colombian economic model, about the business of war and about what is at stake in the Havana talks. As for her being disqualified from holding government positions, she states, “All my rights were violated.”

You support and work for the peace talks in Havana to come to a good end. The talks have all failed since 1984. What is it about this process in particular that makes you believe in it?

I believe that it lies in the political determination of the government and the FARC not to let the process fail at any point. That is demonstrated by the significant advances made so far and by the quality of the guarantors who are supporting the process, the unwavering support of the Cuban government and, above all, of countries like Venezuela and Chile, which, without being directly involved in the decisions, guarantee that the process can continue. That is why I think it has gotten this far. For example, the subcommittee on gender has been established, the committee on de-escalating the conflict, and the victims’ traveling to Havana and FARC itself recognizing them. Furthermore, there are advances concerning political participation, the question of agrarian reform and the question of drugs. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for October 16, 2014. See original here and related articles here, here and here. The author is an activist in the Brazilian chapter of the Marcha Patriótica movement.]

By Javier D. Rodríguez

A few weeks ago a debate was held in the national congress of the Republic of Colombia on the connections between former President and now Senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez and paramilitary groups and narcotraffickers. The debate, initiated by Senator Iván Cepeda of the Polo Democrático Alternativo, sought to ask the Justice Department for results of the investigation into criminal acts allegedly carried out by Uribe, described in detail by Cepeda and other participants during the discussion, which lasted more than eight hours.

The history of Uribe’s involvement in public office is long, as is the history of his corruption scandals and his ties to the paramilitary and drug trafficking. At the time of his first public office as director of civil aviation in 1980, there were charges that he granted permits to planes used by drug trafficking cartels; afterward, as national congressman in 1989, the same Uribe would be one of the main critics of the deportation of drug traffickers; and in his term as governor of the department of Antioquia he was responsible for the birth and growth of paramilitarism through the creation of armed civilian groups called “Convivir” [Asociaciones Comunitarias de Vigilancia Rural]. (more…)

After failing to remove Juan Manuel Santos from the Casa de Nariño, former president Uribe’s opposition will move from Twitter to the Senate

[Translation of an unsigned article from Semana of Bogotá for June 16, 2014. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

For two years Álvaro Uribe, the most popular politician in the recent history of Colombia, set for himself the goal of preventing the re-election of his immediate successor and heir, Juan Manuel Santos. He turned his Twitter account, with its more than three million followers, into an anti-administration platform; he created the Centro Democrático party, the main opposition block in the new congress, with him in the lead; and with its backing he carried Óscar Iván Zuluaga to within a few percentage points of the Casa de Nariño [seat of the executive branch].

Beyond defeating the Uribista candidate, Santos defeated his mentor, transformed for more than half his first term into his Nemesis. The main reason the re-election campaign did not turn out to be a leisurely exercise, like other recent experiences in Latin America, was Uribe’s determined opposition. The former president was also responsible for exposing and exploiting the current president’s mistakes, in one of the most intense, litigious and aggressive electoral contests in recent history. The relative weakness with which Santos will begin his second term compared with his first is due almost entirely to the attacks by Uribe and his followers. (more…)

[Translation of an article from El Clarín of Santiago, Chile, for May 29, 2014. See original here.]

By Ángel Guerra Cabrera

The runoff in the Colombian presidential elections on June 15 will be of exceptional importance for Latin America and the Caribbean.

If Uribista candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga, whose dirty war campaign was managed by [former President Álvaro] Uribe, should prevail, the peace process in Havana between the FARC and the Colombian government would cease and the country would fall into a bloody intensification of the hostilities with this guerrilla and with the ELN [Ejército de Liberación Nacional].

Zuluaga based his campaign on an iron fist against the guerrilla and declared the day after his winning the first round that he would suspend the peace talks in Havana provisionally until the FARC, which he describes as the largest drug cartel in the world, agrees to a unilateral ceasefire and other onerous conditions. This is the equivalent of asking the guerrilla to surrender unconditionally, which would put an end to the promising peace process. (more…)

Spokesman for Colombian political movement suggests Brazilian government may be backing Santos’ policy

[Translation of an interview from Opera Mundi of São Paulo for June 3, 2013. See original here and related articles here, here, here, here and here.]

The Colombian political movement Marcha Patriótica is hoping for a more “pro-active” position from the Brazilian government on the historical conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) and the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional) guerrillas. David Flórez, spokesman for the movement, declared in an interview with Opera Mundi, “It is not very clear if (the Brazilian government) is for peace or if it backs Santos’ policies.”

Flórez and other members of the political and social coalition, of which former Senator Piedad Córdoba is a member, were in Porto Alegre on May 24, 25 and 26 as guests of the Fórum Pela Paz na Colômbia [Forum for Peace in Colombia], held in the gaúcho state’s legislative assembly. The event included social activist groups from Argentina and Uruguay, who endured nearly 24 hours on a bus to arrive at the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Brazilian participation was less challenging in comparison. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Semana of Bogotá for May 27, 2013. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

By Álvaro Sierra Restrepo

The peace process between the government and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) got a powerful boost on Sunday. After six months of talks, the parties announced they had reached agreement on the question of rural development, the first of the five items on the agenda, and that they will move on to the second, that of participation in electoral politics, in the next round of talks, beginning on June 11.

The announcement, which both sides clearly wanted especially to stress, as they charged Norway and Cuba, the host countries, with reading their joint communiqué to the press for the first time, has both a deep meaning and a powerful impact. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for February 8, 2013. See original here and related articles here and here.]

By Miguel Urbano Rodrigues

There is no hiding the fact these days that the Juan Manuel Santos administration is not interested in having the Havana peace talks attain the objective of the agreement sketched out in Oslo with the sponsorship of Norway and Cuba. On the contrary, it makes an effort to prevent their leading to an end of the conflict and to the peace that the Colombian people want.

The head of the Bogotá delegation, Humberto de la Calle, repeatedly finds pretexts for threatening to end the talks, preventing the discussion of items on the agenda from moving forward.

The capture of two police officers in the Valle department, supposedly by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the Ejército Popular (EP), is the latest of these pretexts. (more…)

[Translation of an Agence France Presse article as published in Vanguardia of Bucaramanga, Colombia, on November 1, 2011. See original here.]

“The country knows very well the reasons we have decided to take this step,” said President Santos as he announced Monday evening the elimination of the agency. “It is not a transformation, it is not a reform. In the case of the DAS (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad – Administrative Security Department) it is liquidation. DAS is being eliminated,” the president declared.

During the Uribe administration (2002-2010), DAS was involved in scandals over infiltration by paramilitary groups.

One of its former directors, Jorge Noguera, was convicted of homicide and complicity with these extreme right groups, which were demobilized between 2003 and 2006, and former vice director José Miguel Narváez is also charged with homicide. (more…)

At least 41 candidates have been assassinated by guerrillas or by paramilitaries during the campaign

[Translation of an article from Nueva Tribuna of Madrid, Spain, for October 28, 2011. See original here.]

By Javier M. González

This Sunday, October 30, Colombians will choose local and regional officials in the first elections under the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos. Between February 2 and October 20, 41 candidates were assassinated by diverse violent groups, according to a study by the independent NGO Misión de Observación Electoral (MOE – Electoral Observation Mission). This figure is practically double the number of deaths recorded in the last regional elections, in 2007.

The guerrillas, especially the FARC, rightist paramilitary groups, drug traffickers and other criminal groups are also competing in these elections, through the buying of candidates or the assassination of possible adversaries. For the different violent organizations, of the right or the left, tied or not to drug trafficking or other illegal activities, the control of mayors, city councilors and even governors is an objective that assures them impunity for their activities. And, in many cases, access to security information vital to their survival. (more…)

[Three articles. Under newly elected President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia renewed diplomatic relations with Venezuela last August after ties had been broken over accusations by former President Álvaro Uribe that Venezuela was harboring guerrillas of the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and Santos and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez have since made a show of harmony. In the meantime, Colombia has been hit with serious flooding in recent weeks, resulting in some 138 people dead, 208 injured, 22 missing and 1.3 million homeless. The United States has pledged $150,000 in relief funds, in sharp contrast to the seven billion dollars the US has spent on Plan Colombia in the ten years since the US began participating in the effort, most of it directed to financing the Colombian military in its pursuit of the FARC.]

Venezuela and Brazil to send aid after winter storms

[Translation of an article from Vanguardia Liberal of Bucaramanga, Colombia, for November 28, 2010. See original here.]

The president of the republic, Juan Manuel Santos, reported yesterday that his counterparts in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and in Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have made a commitment to provide aid in response to the harsh winter weather the country is experiencing, as they informed him during the UNASUR (Union of South American States) heads of state summit held last Friday in Georgetown, Guyana. (more…)

Persecuted for more than a year, this electrician is just one of the Colombian government’s victims

Brasil de Fato photo

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo, Brazil, for October 6, 2010. See original article here.]

by Patrícia Benvenuti

Thirty-seven-year-old Colombian electrician Carlos Alirio Peña García no longer feels safe at home, in the municipality of Barbacoas, in the department of Nariño, in the south of the country, where he lives with his wife and daughter. He is afraid that at any moment the police, who a year ago tried to make him pay for a crime he did not commit, will come back.

García’s case is just one example of the crimes the Colombian government perpetrates against the civilian population, who have to deal with the consequences of the alleged war against terrorism and narcotrafficking. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for August 6, 2010.]

by Blanche Petrich

Bogotá, August 5 – In the view of a wide sector of Colombian society – 70 percent according to the polls – President Álvaro Uribe, who will move out of the Casa de Nariño [the presidential residence] this Saturday, is practically a hero, who defeated “narco-terrorism,” eliminated insecurity in the major cities and restored the citizens’ ability to travel on the South American country’s highways without the risk of kidnapping or extortion, with which the guerrillas and the paramilitaries had ravaged the country until just a few years ago.

An aura of legendary proportions built up around Uribe moved his former adviser, José Obdulio Gaviria – known as his “musketeer” – to express himself in exalted language in his article in El Tiempo last Wednesday: “Heaven has granted us a superior intellect, a guide to lead his people across the desert,” he declares. (more…)